I had an interesting interaction concerning President-Elect Obama. I will do my best to use language that will not identify the person, a great friend of ours. This person stated, "I'll be interested to see if Obama takes his oath of office with his hand on the Bible."

I chose not to pursue the issue due the circumstances surrounding the conversation. Perhaps I showed some maturity? At long last some people might say.

I don't care if P-E Obama takes the oath of office with his hand on the Bible or any other book he deems holy. I care only that he takes the oath and then lives up to what he has sworn:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The following interesting historical tidbit came from Wikipedia:

"According to tradition, in the first inaugural, President Washington added the words 'so help me God' when reciting the oath, although there is no contemporary evidence of this. The words have been thereafter repeated by some presidents (as well as some vice presidents, while taking their oaths), including all since Franklin D Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, chose to conclude his oath with the phrase "And thus I swear." Only Franklin Pierce has chosen to affirm rather than swear. It is often asserted that Herbert Hoover also affirmed, because he was a Quaker, but newspaper reports prior to his inauguration state his intention to swear rather than affirm."

I note that, with respects to the US being a Christian country, no president has sworn, "so help me in the name of Jesus Christ."

If P-E Obama takes the oath on the Bible and then fails to live up to the principles laid down in our Holy Scripture, he will be guilty of violating one of the Ten Commandments. He will have committed the most serious form of blasphemy - to say he believes and not to live accordingly.

Now, if P-E Obama actually is a Muslim Anti-Christ as some vicious E-mails attest, he will have no trouble taking his oath of office on the Judeo-Christian Bible because he would not give any credence whatsoever to the consequences of a "false" oath on a book he would not consider holy.

My bottom line, therefore, is for P-E Obama to take the oath, with or without the Bible or any book he considers holy, and subsequently to fulfill the oath he takes: "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States".

So, I don't care what faith P-E Obama has or does not have as long as he fulfills, to the best of his ability, his oath of office.

Of course I reserve the right to comment on the way he goes about fulfilling that oath.